{"pk":27458,"title":"The Redundancy Effect in Human Causal Learning: Evidence Against a\nComparator Theory Explanation","subtitle":null,"abstract":"The blocking effect, canonical in the study of associative\nlearning, is often explained as a failure of the blocked cue to\nbecome associated with the outcome. However, this\nperspective fails to explain recent findings that suggest\nlearning about a blocked cue is superior to a different type of\nredundant cue. We report an experiment designed to test the\nproposal that blocking is not a failure of association, but a\nperformance effect arising from a comparator process\n(Denniston, Savastano, & Miller, 2001). Participants received\nA+ AX+ BY+ CY- training containing a blocked cue X and\nanother redundant cue Y, before rating outcome expectancies\nfor individual cues. These ratings were inconsistent with the\nassociation-failure view. After subsequent A- Y+ training,\nparticipants rated cues again. Ratings in the second test were\ninconsistent with the comparator theory. Our data suggest that\nneither perspective is likely to provide a complete account of\ncausal learning.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"associative learning; comparator theory;\nredundancy effect; blocking; cue competition"}],"section":"Posters: Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/02t2v52b","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Tara","middle_name":"","last_name":"Zaksaite","name_suffix":"","institution":"Plymouth University","department":""},{"first_name":"Peter","middle_name":"M.","last_name":"Jones","name_suffix":"","institution":"Plymouth University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2017-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/27458/galley/17094/download/"}]}